Of Angry Men and Alley Ways
by idunno15
Summary: When trying to escape the angry men, young Wufei stumbles upon Duo in an alley. 25 friendship


Title: Of Angry Men and Alley Ways  
  
Summary: When trying to escape the angry men, young Wufei stumbles upon Duo and Solo in an alley  
  
Pairings: 2+5 friendship  
  
Warning: death  
  
Author's Note: This was just a quick little thing I had been toying with for a while... This is before the serious, a 'what if?' sort of. Wufei and Duo are supposed to be about the same age. Wufei tends to seem younger... I figure Duo matured faster from living on the street?  
  
- - - ---~-~-~ Of Angry Men and Alley Ways~-~-~--- - - -  
  
The rain distorted the scenes behind the tinted windows somewhat, but Wufei could still see all the bright, colored lights gleaming, distracting one's eye from all the dull grey buildings they were attached to.  
  
L2 wasn't the beautiful, shining city Wufei had imagined. He thought he was going to see tall, elegant buildings, and street entertainers and shops, with corner cafés and swarms of people going through their lives. Instead there was rain; a light drizzle that would hardly be enough to be of any good to the colony so Wufei hadn't a clue why it was happening. There were also drab grey buildings that stretch up all the way to the drab grey sky, the two blended together. The scarce people on the streets rushed along, hurried to get out of the rain. Those who weren't hurrying didn't have anywhere to go...  
  
"Daddy, why are those people lying on the streets?" the curious young boy asked without moving his face from being smushed against the window.  
  
Chang Wei Lui smiled indulgently at his son. The boy was curious of nature, but too young to understand the harshness of life. Recently his mother had passed on, died in birth. To WuFei she was 'taking a vacation', and no, daddy didn't know when she'd be coming back.  
  
After his wife's death, Chang knew he was not going to be able to raise their song on his own 24/7 and had planned to travel to earth to interview with several of the most prestigious primary school available. The detour to L2 had been a last minute emergency.  
  
"Because they live there, Wu Fei."  
  
Wufei wrinkled his nose. Why would anyone live in the streets? It's cold, and damp and yucky.... "Don't they have homes?"  
  
"No, Wufei, they do not."  
  
The car stopped, several other men in suits exited the limousine, and then Daddy pulled Wufei into his arms and followed them into one of the large grey buildings.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Hush, Wu Fei, you may ask questions later." Daddy gave Wufei a stern look.  
  
Daddy talked to a woman sitting behind a huge desk. The lady looked how she smelled; of chemicals and flowers and pink. Daddy set him down next to her and Wufei wrinkled his nose as the woman pinched his cheek and said something in English.  
  
Seeming satisfied, Daddy turned and went to where the other men in suits had gone. "Daddy, wait!" Wufei panicked, not wanting to be left behind by his Daddy with this awful pink lady. "I wanna come!"  
  
ChangWei Lui sighed, kneeling down by his son. "You can't Wu Fei. Stay with this woman and I'll be right back. Now, you will behave, yes?"  
  
Wufei pouted. "Yes, Daddy."  
  
Daddy smiled at Wufei and patted his head. "Good."  
  
- - - ---~-~-~-^~-~-~--- - - -  
  
It was cold, wet, and generally yucky. And he was hungry. Several other children in their gang were nibbling delicately on the bread one person had been able to snatch, but Duo refused to eat any of it. He didn't need it as bad as some, he could wait for later.  
  
Shivering, Duo tried once more to pull his gangly, too-thin arms and legs closer together. The pants and shirt he was wearing were far to thin and raged to provide any shelter from L2 fake rain storm.  
  
"Here, kid." A blanket was draped over his shoulders, along with a warm body. "Yer gonna freeze yerself ta death like this."  
  
Duo merely nodded, leaning into Solo's larger body, sharing the warmth.  
  
"Aren't ye hungry?" Solo himself hadn't eaten anything; he didn't think Duo had noticed. He had.  
  
Duo shrugged. Solo snorted, but also remained silent.  
  
Together they sat like that for a time, sharing warmth while waiting for the rain to cease. At the mouth of the alley cars would pass occasionally. Most beaten old economy sized cars where tired workers would go back to their tired homes. At one point a limo cruised by. It had been shiny and new looking, with a small Chinese boy peering out the window.  
  
Eventually, the rain died down, but the artificial sun didn't come out, leaving the sky grey and dull.  
  
- - - ---~-~-~-^~-~-~--- - - -  
  
The office building was very white, Wufei decided. The walls, the tiled floor, the doors, the furniture, all of it were white, or had used to be white as some point. He idly wondered if he blended into the walls, and that was why the lady hadn't notice when he walked off. The nanny had been dressing him in so much white...  
  
The pink lady had been chittering on the phone in her English, and Wufei had gotten bored, so stuffing the cookies she had offered him into his pockets, he had scrammed off as soon as she hadn't been looking. Now he regretted that rash decision. All the hallways looked the same; he couldn't tell where to find the one the pink lady was in. And he was almost out of cookies.  
  
Nearby, men yelled in that foreign English language that his tutor was trying to teach him. They sounded angry. As Wufei got closer, he recognized one of them as his daddy's voice.  
  
Wufei almost skipped in excitement, realizing that he was no longer lost, he had found Daddy. The consequences of Daddy getting mad at him for not listening couldn't be as bad as being lost in the white hallway had been.  
  
The men still sounded angry, so Wufei decided it was best to sneak in and try to catch his daddy's attention without alerting the angry men. Except that they were yelling at his daddy, and his daddy was yelling back.  
  
Wufei was able to get under the table without any of the angry men seeing him; they were all too busy yelling. Some of the men Wufei recognized, they were from his home too; they knew his daddy. The others were foreign and pale, and Wufei had never seen them before in his life.  
  
The yelling ended abruptly, a loud bang resonated in the room, quickly followed by a thud. Wufei squinted his eyes and curled into a tight ball tight ball when he had heard the bang. It was so scary!  
  
If was a few seconds before Wufei was brave enough to open his eyes. And when he did, he wanted to close them again. But he couldn't, he was frozen.  
  
Daddy was there, laying on the ground, smeared in red stuff. It was horrible, and it was everywhere, all over daddy. Daddy's breathes were coming in short gasps, like he had run miles, or was practicing martial arts.  
  
Identical blacks eyes met, and Chang Wei Lui's eyes widened in horror in seeing his son hiding under the table. "Wufei," he gasped.  
  
The men were coming to stand around his father. "Wufei! Get out of here!" BANG! Red stuff was coming from Daddy's head now, and Daddy wasn't moving...  
  
"DADDDY!!!" Wufei screeched. His entire body was trembling, and now tears were falling down his eyes, but Wufei couldn't run to his daddy, couldn't shake him and tell him to get up. Couldn't... couldn't move... and the men were coming after him now!  
  
The one man crawled under the table to pull him out ruffling. All the men in the room were scowling at him and one was holding something black, but Wufei didn't care. He silently sniffled, watching his daddy, willing him to get up and tell the man to put him down.  
  
"Daddy..." Daddy wasn't getting up.  
  
"Is this the Chang brat?"  
  
"Yes, Chang's only son."  
  
"How did he get in here?"  
  
"I don't know. What are we going to do with him?"  
  
"Wufei...Wufei." Someone was speaking him, shaking him out of his stupor. Large, tearful eyes looked up into a familiar face. Wufei knew this man, he had known Wufei's daddy, they had been friends, he had a little daughter Wufei played with sometimes.  
  
"Wufei, you're going to have to stop crying." Was he crying? Yes. But he couldn't stop, and he wouldn't listen to this man.  
  
"Wufei, your daddy is going to have to go away for a while. You are going to come home with me, ok? You can play with Meiran until your mommy and daddy come back, ok?" NO! Wufei wasn't going with this man! He made his daddy stop moving! Daddy!  
  
Summoning all his strength, Wufei kicked and bit, squirming until the person holding him dropped him. As soon as he hit the ground he ran. Away from daddy, and from the man he had called himself friend and was really enemy, away from the angry men that made Daddy stop moving.  
  
Wufei didn't know how he found his way out, but he did, soon leaving the white hallways and angry men for the damp grey outdoors. It didn't mean he was safe though, and he kept running, and running and running. By the time Wufei found an adequate alley to duck into his legs were sore and his lungs burned. Expensive silk pants were muddied and ruined from running in puddles and Wufei was now damp and cold. He didn't care. He had gotten away before the angry men made him stop moving too.  
  
- - - ---~-~-~-^~-~-~--- - - -  
  
The boy was small and elfin, even smaller than Duo, without malnutrition to stunt his growth. Long ebony hair clung damply to his bang and golden face, matching eyes stared blankly as they tried to get his attention. The small boy's chest hefted, proof that he had been running for some time before he had collapsed in their alley. His eyes and nose were red, and his finger tips were turning blue. Shudders and sobs would occasionally shake the small body.  
  
Solo had shooed everyone away from crowding around him, so now it was just him and Duo trying to catch the boy's attention.  
  
"D'you think he even speaks English?" Duo asked Solo, pointing. "He looks pretty foreign." It was true, his clothes were oddly cut and made out of silky material that Duo was willing to bet was real, a gold necklace was wrapped twice around his neck. Duo was willing to bet that was real, too. No one that well-off lived on L2.  
  
"Maybe not." Solo agreed, sighing, kneeling down. "Hungry?" he asked very carefully, offering a left over piece of bread. Finally the boy reacted, black eyes flickered to recognize the food being shoved in his face before shaking his head timidly. No  
  
Encouraged, Solo tried for more. "Solo." He pointed to him. "My name is Solo. You are?" everything he said was slow and as articulate as he could manage.  
  
Small teeth chewed on a lip delicately. "Solo...?" the faint voice was heavily accented and timidy, afraid was making a mistake. Solo nodded his head.  
  
"You are?"  
  
"Wu Fei."  
  
"Wufei?" a slight nod and Solo smiled. "Are you tired? Sleeping?" It was almost night. Wufei stared at Solo blankly, and then his gaze shifted over to look at Duo.  
  
"That's Duo. Duo."  
  
"Duo."  
  
Solo smiled. "Good, Wufei. We'll have you speaking English in no time."  
  
- - - ---~-~-~-^~-~-~--- - - -  
  
Solo was already gone from his right side, but Duo's entire body was unusually warm, and his blanket was moving. Blankets don't move, maybe some of the insects *on* his blanket moved, but not this much. Duo's eyes cracked open to see black.  
  
Groaning, Duo realized was it was, shifted to sit up. "Wufei," he whispered, shaking a shoulder. "Wake up." The small Chinese boy moaned, wrinkling his nose. A small fist clutched Duo's tee-shirt. Soft foreign words came from the boy.  
  
"Wufei, wake up." Duo nudged once more, and this time was rewards with black eyes looking up at his.  
  
"Duo?" Duo smiled and ruffled his hair.  
  
"Morning. Hungry?" After a week of living with their little street gang, Wufei had learned several English words. Those words mainly being 'hungry', 'tired', 'yes', 'no'.  
  
"Yes." Wufei smiled sweetly at him.  
  
"Yer in for a treat today! Every Friday Mr. Reinstein, the guy who runs the bakery down the street gives out the left-overs from last week cuz nobody wants week old bagels, so he gives 'em to us." Fresh food that wasn't picked out of a garbage *was* a treat.  
  
Wufei didn't understand any of this though as the over boy dragged him along, and merely followed silently. 'Duo' and 'Solo' had been kind to take care of him and take him in. He had been trying his best to try and understand them and go along with whatever they were doing. It had been several days, and not a single one of those men had found him. He had found a good hiding place.  
  
Mr. Reinsten was a friendly old man who owned the shop that had sat on the corner of Main St. and 18th Ave. for as long as Duo could remember.  
  
"Wu Fei!"  
  
At that faint yell, Duo felt Wufei stopped, and looked behind him. The smaller boy had frozen dead still, his liquid eyes widened comically.  
  
"Wu Fei." A tall, older man was swiftly walked up to them and grabbed Wufei up and away from Duo. "Where have you been?! I've been searching for you everywhere!"  
  
Duo couldn't understand a single word the man was saying as he fussed over Wufei. It was clearly obvious that the man wasn't going to let Wufei go, though, no matter how much Wufei fought. And fought he did, desperately, as if his life depended on it. And maybe it did.  
  
"He's a bit rebellious." The man excused to the people staring at the two Asians. The man smile kindly at Wufei, saying a few more lightly reprimanding words in some foreign language, and Duo decided then that he didn't like that man. His smile was fake, he held Wufei a little too roughly to make him look like a concerned parent.  
  
"Duo!" Wufei cried, still struggling.  
  
Duo was torn. Wufei needed help, but no one would believe that.... The man obviously knew Wufei, maybe he had run away from home? In that case he should go back. The man noticed Duo.  
  
"You, who are you?"  
  
"Duo." Why was his voice so squeaky?  
  
"Duo... you found Wu Fei, yes?" Duo nodded dumbly, arching his neck as the man came to stand in front of him. Wufei had given up his fight, now hanging limply in the man's arms trembling and sniffling.  
  
Duo numbly felt something pushed into his hand and when he looked down found money clenched into his small fist. "For your troubles," the man explained with another fake smile and walked away with Wufei in his arms.  
  
Turning, Duo stood, watching the man take Wufei farther and farther away, still deciding if he should do something. His fingers clenched around the money almost angrily, his knuckles were white.  
  
A limo pulled up and both got into it and road away. Too late.  
  
- - - ---~-~-~-^~-~-~--- - - -  
  
Please, read & review 


End file.
